‘Ant-Man’ Director Peyton Reed Didn’t Want His Hero to Be a Part of the Bigger MCU

The addition of Ant-Man was one of the best parts of Captain America: Civil War, and his self-contained solo debut was a far cry from the Very Big And Huge movies of the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ant-Man’s director Peyton Reed actually thought the character’s narrative was too pint-sized for these other big superhero movies, and recently revealed that, had he had his way, Ant-Man wouldn’t have appeared in Civil War at all.

Speaking with Moviefone about the upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp, Reed said that he wasn’t all that happy to see the character level up from solo film to ensemble joint, and would have preferred he stay in his own little pocket world of the MCU.

I think we like our little Ant-Man corner of the universe. Because it’s a whole different vibe tonally, but also just in terms of who Scott Lang, who Ant-Man is: he is a guy who is maybe not so sure he wants to be like this Avenger-style, full-on superhero. He’s got a kid, and this is the inner conflict with him, and he’s very much just like a normal guy who has come into contact with some incredible power. So, we like that aspect of kind of like it being its own little corner of the universe…

Again, that is one of the sort of things where it’s a mixed bag. When I first found out — gosh, I don’t know, two years ago, a year-and-a-half ago — that Civil War was going to get the Giant-Man premiere, I was like “No!” But, now, I’ve since recovered, and we have a lot more in store for Scott Lang in this movie. We get to see the Wasp debut — we’re all about the Wasp and Ant-Man. So I like it, because we spend a lot of time with our different writers and directors, and there’s a lot of crosstalk, and I love that.

Ant-Man pretty much stuck to the Marvel origin story script, but was a smaller endeavor, opting for self-containment and a family theme rather than huge explosions and world-ending shenanigans. Keeping it more chill was actually what Edgar Wright wanted to do in the first place, before dropping out of the project. Ant-Man was different enough to be a welcome surprise in the midst of our collective superhero saturation, but we’ve come to a point where we know that when a new superhero is introduced, they’ll have to appear in an ensemble film eventually.